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Petitions now are sent via emails. Once the required number of signatures are met, the final person is to send the PETITION to the listed addresses within the PETITION. PLEASE GO THE EXTRA MILE AND SEND IN AN EMAIL COMPLAINT YOURSELF TOO. USE THE EMAIL ADDRESSES LISTED IN THE PETITION.

For example here is a real PETITION that is being distributed in order to collect 200 names and thus the final 200th person is to forward the email with the signatures. For example, in the body of the said email you will see these instructions:

Please copy this message out of the original email and paste into a new email. Lastly, add your name to the bottom and pass it on to people who have the same concerns within our community. When there are 200 names, please forward to Jim.Bradley@Ontario.ca and Mr. McGuintydmcguinty.mpp@liberal.ola.org

This new technology is called: WEB OF TRUST…Download a simple app with Google Chrome or Mozilla FireFox web browsers and your worry about website safety is over. This includes hyperlinks within emails where you are TOLD not to CLICK. Now you can peek at the links before you click and you are also guided by a traffic light warning system.

WOT protects YOU from phishing scams, SPAM, and other Internet scams online. This is a must have app (software application connected to your web browser).

BROWSERS COVERED WITH WOT:Yes all operating systems work with WOT: Windows Xp and later, Mac, and Linux. What more can you ask for?

In fact, the New York Times includes this program in their recent

New York Times:

“Google says its automated scans of the Internet recently turned up malware on roughly 300,000 Web sites, double the number it recorded two years ago. Each site can contain many infected pages. Meanwhile, Malware doubled last year, to 240 million unique attacks, according to Symantec, a maker of security software. And that does not count the scourge of fake antivirus software and other scams. So it is more important than ever to protect yourself. Here are some basic tips for thwarting them.”

The New York Times article goes on to state that “Free tools like McAfee’s SiteAdvisor and the Firefox [also other browsers mentioned above] add-on Web of Trust can also help — warning about potentially dangerous links.”

I personally use this program with Google Chrome and FireFox and have found it an excellent buddy to have looking over your online shoulder. You can never be too safe online and programs such as WOT are a must have these days.

As Canadian Internet users, we pay one of the highest fees for bandwidth and it isn’t the world’s fastest either. Now the Canadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC) grants even higher costs that include Internet Usage Caps. Can you imagine that Ontario residents are told:

“For Ontario and Quebec residents, if you are lucky enough to have cable services not from Rogers you should be fine,”

“As you may have heard, Canada’s big ISPs are putting the squeeze on consumer internet usage by implementing new bandwidth caps with exorbitant new overage rates. Beginning March 1st many Canadian internet users are going to see their monthly Internet service bills rise significantly. What does it mean for you? And what can you do? Read on.

Bell Canada lobbied the CRTC for new rules for independent ISPs who rely on their network to serve their clientele. Many years ago the CRTC rightly dictated that the telcos must allow independent ISPs access to the “last mile” so they can service clients. Essentially opening up competition in the broadband market to better serve Canadians, after all, the incumbent telcos received tax breaks and other help to build the network of wires that serve Canadian homes. It makes no sense to have each independent ISP run their own infrastructure to each dwelling.

This allowed small companies such as TekSavvy to offer services to their own customers, often with better bandwidth caps or unlimited usage policies. Rather than compete with this head on Bell decided to lobby the CRTC to implement “Usage Based Billing” (UBB), meaning that these competing ISPs can no longer offer better packages but must instead offer what Bell tells them to offer.

The result, customers of TekSavvy are now faced with a cut in their monthly cap, they are forced to match Bell’s cap and Bell has decided that 25GB per month is enough. So TekSavvy’s customers previously enjoying a 200GB or unlimited cap are now being switched to this 25GB cap. Sure they can buy “insurance” packages to give them more capacity but to get back what they had before their monthly Internet bill essentially doubles, and TekSavvy doesn’t get any of the money, it all goes directly to Bell. If you don’t buy the insurance, well, the overage rates are $2+ per GB.

In the past few months Canadians have had access to new online streaming services, Netflix Canada launched this past fall giving Canadians a great new option for enjoying entertainment, not only on their computers but also via Netflix ready devices such as the AppleTV, Xbox Live and Playstation 3 as well as a new line of Netflix ready televisions and set top boxes launching this year.

Interestingly, as soon as Netflix announced their intention to launch in Canada, Rogers Cable announced lowered bandwidth caps within days of the announcement. It seems very coincidental timing wise doesn’t it? While Rogers set their cap at 60GB per month Bell has gone even further and set a 25GB cap. It’s also quite interesting that the 3 major ISPs adjusting their Internet usage caps are in fact the same corporations who happen to own most of the broadcasting outlets in Canada and also own the largest cable and satellite companies. What better way to kill the competition by making them prohibitively expensive for consumers to use.

To give you some idea of what 25GB means to you, if you watch one HD movie each week you will have used up more than half that cap. If you purchase a game from an online digital distributor such as Xbox Live, Playstation Network or Steam you can easily eat up half your capacity. If you watch YouTube HD you are eating up more of that capacity.

The kicker is with the speeds of the internet connections available today you can use up your entire months allotment of data in only a few hours. This sets Canadians back immensely on the world stage. At a time when more Canadians are turning to the net our ISPs are attempting to neuter our usage or profit from our over usage. Canadians use the internet more than they watch TV these days.

The fact is it costs less than a few cents, in most cases less than a penny, for an ISP to move a GB (gigabyte) of data. They plan on charging many times the cost of transferring this data and profiting off consumer usage by only offering low capacity levels from the start. This is not about stopping network abusers, it is about profiting off the average consumer family, we doubt there are many families out there who can remain below the low 25GB monthly allotment of data.

So, what can you do? Sign the petition available at www.stopthemeter.ca, over 140,000 Canadians have already signed this petition.

Contact your local Member of Parliament, Industry Minister Tony Clement, your local council, your local media and anyone else you think can help.

And if you experience a bill or warning due to usage, speak with your money and move your account away from Bell, Rogers and Shaw. If possible move all your services away from them, hurting their bottom line can work, especially if it will have a negative impact on their stock prices. Even if you’re stuck with the same caps at a small independent ISP at least you are sending a message, and helping these independents survive to help consumers fight this battle.

For residents in the Maritimes, Eastlink have stated they do NOT intend to charge UBB.

For residents in Manitoba, MTS may be your best bet.

For residents of Saskatchewan, SaskTel have announced they do NOT intend to charge UBB.

For Alberta and British Columbia residents, Telus are your best bet at this time, especially if you are in an Optik capable area. Telus provides 250GB of data per month for the same price Shaw only gives 100GB. Note, there are no guarantees with Telus of course due to their close ties with Bell Canada, but it has been said that they do NOT intend to follow their lead by drastically reducing customer internet caps.

For Ontario and Quebec residents, if you are lucky enough to have cable services not from Rogers you should be fine, if your only choices are Bell or Rogers then please choose an alternate independent ISP such as TekSavvy.

You can also hurt them by cutting back on specialties on your cable or satellite services and using alternative telephone services such as VOIP (providing you can get a decent internet connection that is!).”

The author of this finding, Vivek Wadhwa, is a “visiting Scholar at UC-Berkeley, Senior Research Associate at Harvard Law School and Director of Research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at Duke University” who says that “Google has become a jungle: a tropical paradise for spammers and marketers”, and I cannot agree more.

THE MAJOR PROBLEM WITH GOOGLE SEARCH is that “when you visit these sites, they take you to the websites of other companies that want to sell you their goods”, and thus you are SPAMMED.

THIS IS WHAT IS MEANT:

“This is exactly what blogger Paul Kedrosky found when trying to buy a dishwasher. He wrote about how he began Googleing for information…and Googleing…and Googleing. He couldn’t make head or tail of the results. Paul concluded that the “the entire web is spam when it comes to major appliance reviews”.”

There is a new alternative to Google that the author recommends:

“We ended up using instead a web-search tool called Blekko. It’s a new technology and is far from perfect; but it is innovative and fills the vacuum of competition with Google (and Bing).”

One that recommend is cooliris.com – An amazing adventure in HIGH TECH SURFING…

Let’s hope Google cleans up its act by removing SPAM SEARCH or a new kid on the block like Blekko succeeds to the point where Google first became a “household word”.

It is obvious that there is some heavy competition between Microsoft and Google in the online document market. About a year ago I wrote about the services offered by Google Docs (docs.google.com), which includes free online document creation and editing, along with online storage and collaboration. Microsoft has also been providing a somewhat similar service, originally with its Office Live Workspace (beta), but now with its enhanced and upgraded SkyDrive service, which is also free (explore.live.com/windows-live-skydrive). While the office components in Google Docs are generally compatible with Microsoft Office, Microsoft’s SkyDrive provides a free online version of Office. Since SkyDrive is online, it is accessible from anywhere there is an internet connection, and works with most browsers; I tried it on Firefox and Internet Explorer, and it worked flawlessly on both browsers. SkyDrive is platform independent, and works equally well on a PC and a MAC, or any other operating system with a compatible browser and internet access. Documents can be “collaborated” and edited or shared with others, even if the other users do not have Microsoft Office. Microsoft SkyDrive offers 25MB of free storage, an adequate if not generous amount of storage space for almost all users. SkyDrive requires registration, which is free; registered users of most other online Microsoft products, such as the other Microsoft Live services, Hotmail or Messenger can use their existing usernames and passwords on the SkyDrive service.

One of the primary features is the “Office Web Apps for SkyDrive”, which includes online versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. Clicking on the “Office” link will open up the basic Office App page, where the desired application can be opened. The first window for all of the apps is very simple, where the user is asked to enter the name of the document. I started typing this column on the online Office Word App, and the screen was almost identical to the desktop version of Word. Anyone who can use Word, or another similar word processor, will find the online Word app familiar and easy to use; almost all of the features, commands, controls, and features of the desktop version are available in the free online version of Word. In terms of functionality, I could not find any significant differences between the web and desktop versions of Word. The user can choose to save the file on the SkyDrive servers (the default), print, and share the document. Under the “Share” option, others can be invited to view or edit the document, all under the control of the original user.

As with Word, the online Excel App has the same look and feel as the desktop version of Excel. To open a new workbook, the clean opening screen asks the user for a file name, and then the workbook opens. Once data is entered, there is no “Save” button, as the Excel App continuously saves the workbook as it is produced. The user also has the option to “Save As” and save the workbook under another name. Unless explicitly downloaded to the computer, all of the workbooks are saved to the SkyDrive servers. Workbooks can be selectively shared with others, while the others can be granted access only to view the workbook, or edit it; this is the heart of online document collaboration.

I frequently do PowerPoint presentations, and the SkyDrive PowerPoint app offers the ability to create, edit, store, and show a PowerPoint presentation from anywhere there is internet access. When opened, the PowerPoint app has the same look and feel of the desktop version, and uses the same command set. As with Excel, there is no “Save” button, as the presentations are automatically saved as they are created. One interesting feature is that when a PowerPoint presentation is shown (“View – Slide Show”) it opens in a browser pop-up window, so the user must allow browser pop-ups from the application in order for the slide show to be viewed. If connected to a projector, the output looks the same as if it was from a desktop version of PowerPoint. As with all of the other Office online apps, the user can choose to share the file with others, and selectively allow others to edit the file. Since Microsoft provides 25MB of free storage, SkyDrive is a practical place to store presentations; if for some reason the presentation must be shown from a computer lacking Office, the SkyDrive file can be shown, as long as there is internet access.

Microsoft OneNote is hard to explain, but basically both the desktop and SkyDrive App versions are both note-taking utilities. OneNote can easily organize any notes that are taken, and would be useful in a classroom, organizational, or professional environment where notes are taken. OneNote looks like a simplified version of Word, but allows the user to “flag” important points, or quickly search for desired terms or phrases. OneNote can incorporate images, web pages, and video, and can itself be incorporated into Word or PowerPoint. A few of my students use OneNote to share class notes during my lectures, ensuring that each of them has a comprehensive set of notes for test reviews. As with the other Office apps, it can be selectively shared with and edited by others. As with some of the other apps, there is no “Save” button as the information is saved to SkyDrive in real-time.

I have several students who do not have Microsoft Office on their personal computers, but need to be able to access Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote; SkyDrive is a free alternative to Microsoft Office, provided that the student has internet access. For the frequent times when several of us must work together (there is that “collaboration” term again) on an Office file, SkyDrive could be the appropriate utility that we could all share, giving us secure and controlled access to our files. For those who have the desktop version of Office 2010, there is a direct and transparent online connection with SkyDrive, allowing files to be saved on SkyDrive directly from the desktop Office. The SkyDrive files can be selectively shared with anyone on Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, AOL Mail, Hyves, Gmail, Outlook, other Windows Live users, and anyone else with an email address. For security and privacy reasons, access is limited to only those authorized by the user, and that degree of access is also under the control of the original user.

I found SkyDrive and its Office Apps to be every bit as useful as their desktop counterparts, with the bonus of secure online storage of files. Some of us have used SkyDrive and its apps to work together on producing Word documents and PowerPoint presentations, without the need to physically swap files between us. SkyDrive and its Office Apps would be very worthwhile for any computer user with internet access.

I have always enjoyed seeing people get computers for the first time. Although it is hard to detect the look in their eyes: horror or excitement.

My first computer was in 1972, it was the size of a house, well not really, but close. It was a beast of a machine, an IBM 360 located in the data centre where I worked as a keypunch programmer. My first home computer was in 1984, a Mackintosh desktop, much smaller but not easier to use. It had no help buttons as it came with an extra box of instructional manuals. I couldn’t call others for help because hardly anyone had a home computer back then. Some people still experience huge learning curve with their first computer.

Your parents and/or grandparents may get their first computer from Santa this year…look out! Your life will never be the same. Guess what they probably know where you live. They know your home and cell phone number. They even have your work phone number. They may have mastered the art of texting. You cannot escape from the proverbial: “How do I do this?”

I know people who literally hide. They screen calls. They turn out lights and read from the reflection of their computer screens or light candles fearing a drive-by from parents. All in an effort to evade the constant cry for tech help from relatives who want to learn but cannot figure it out alone.

Sure, we must admit it is fun at first. Seeing them slowly getting the gist of how to send and receive an email. The look in their eyes when they perform their very first Google search. This is all well and good, and even sort of healthy. But when you leave them home alone, that is when it starts. The constant queries begin like this:

Parent: “HELP me.”

You: “What did you do?”

Parent: “Nothing, I didn’t touch a thing. The computer won’t do anything.”

You: “Did you reboot the computer?”

Parent: “Do what?”

You: “Restart your system.”

Parent: “Do I unplug everything?”

You: “Never mind, I’ll be right over, AGAIN.”

It won’t stop here with one visit. Now they really start seeking you out…STOP! Wait a minute. This is our parents we are talking about. The ones who asked Santa for that computer, the same one we talked them into asking Santa. Now it is our moral duty to stand up and be counted, to come to their rescue. We are like super sons and daughters. But how can we accomplish this almost impossible task and keep our sanity?

Never fear, Google is here. Google realized this is a massive problem for many siblings and most just don’t have the time to help and designed free training videos.

Introducing: “Send your parents A TECH SUPPORT care package.” from Google. No, this is not a scam, it for real. As of this writing 13,999 parents have received this care package. Ok, I can hear the questions: ”What is it”?

Google’s TECH SUPPORT is your “saving grace”. And to be honest, you might just learn some tips and tricks yourself from these videos. Here’s how it works:

There are five categories: BASICS – WWW – COMMUNICATION – MEDIA – FINDING INFORMATION. Within each category you find real help video topics in the BASIC as Copy & Paste, Screensavers, Backgrounds, Make Text Larger or Smaller. Others such as in the WWW, as Upgrade Your Browser, Make Strong Passwords, Make a Bookmark etc. All-in-all there are 37 training videos produced by Google to assist in learning basic computer to digital photos, sound, and much more. Each video is very easy to follow along and learn at one’s own speed. One I really like is the “How to Unsubscribe to a Newsletter” sent by email subscription. It is easy. You send your parents the training video that matches their problem or program they want to learn.

I call this new GOOGLE TECH SUPPORT a “Post Christmas” must have for everyone. I will be within these 37 videos even you will find something you didn’t know or have forgotten how. Best of all, it is free with no scams attached.

Gregory West is a Mac Instructor for Lambton College.
He is also Webmaster at Central United Church, the home of Sarnia’s new
Community Computer Training Centre at: http://goo.gl/76H15.
This is free and open to the public as a community service. Learn at your own speed.